


Burnout

by HCN



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Quantum of Solace (2008)
Genre: Dark, Gen, Psychological Torture, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 01:11:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7554382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HCN/pseuds/HCN
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dominic isn't happy with Camille, and sets out to teach her a lesson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burnout

**Author's Note:**

> [Originally posted to Tumblr](http://hydr0gencyan1de.tumblr.com/post/145322711724/burnout).
> 
> Thanks to [vials](http://archiveofourown.org/users/vials) for proof-reading.

The lowlights in Dominic’s hotel room made everything so dim as Camille entered; she hesitated in the doorway, watching Dominic glide across the room as she waited for her eyes to adjust, counting windows and doors. He reached the minibar, slipped out of his jacket and draped it over the back of a chair, then loosened his tie and turned back to face her.

“Aren’t you going to come in, Camille? You can’t even see the room from there.”

Her eyes were adjusted enough. Even after a few drinks, like this, she knew she could take him.

“Of course, Dominic,” she said. The door clicked behind her. She took a step in and looked around. A gasp would be appropriate– not too loud, less she made it obvious, but audible enough that she could say, “Oh, Dominic. This is beautiful.”

“Isn’t it?” he asked. “It’s the nicest room in the hotel. I thought you might like it.”

“Did you think of me when you made plans?” Camille sat on the bed, crossed and uncrossed her legs, then slipped her shoes off and kicked them to the side.

Dominic turned away from the minibar, a champagne flute in each hand. Slowly he crossed the room, balancing each champagne flute and then handing one to her. “I hoped that you would like it,” he said. “After all, I knew that today would be long for us both.”

His eyes moved over her, covering her face and lingering on her slightly smudged lipstick, how her skin glistened in the dim lights, then moving down to her dark blue cocktail dress, the turquoise bracelet and necklace that matched his tie, down further to her legs, her aching feet. Then he looked back to her eyes. “You really do look beautiful tonight, Camille.”

He raised his champagne flute, clinked it against hers, then took a sip. “Beautiful,” he repeated, before proceeding to down half the content.

Camille carefully sipped her own drink. “You are so handsome yourself,” she said. “Especially earlier in the night, while I see you speaking. I think everyone there was impressed.”

Dominic snorted. He set his drink to the side as she took another. “It’s a shame, Camille. I was hoping you would be with me for more of the night. I wanted to show everyone how beautiful you are.”

He stood off the bed and moved to the desk. Camille watched as he pulled open a drawer, taking something out but blocking her view of it with his body.

“I was with you,” Camille said. “How could you forget?”

“Well, yes,” Dominic said. He turned back to her and she saw now that in his hands was a box of matches. “I was just hoping we could spend more time together.”

Camille reached out an arm. “Come here, Dominic. I’m here now.”

He struck a match. This time her gasp was not rehearsed, not audible, but visible as she tensed her back and straightened herself, holding the champagne flute tighter as she stared at the tiny, fizzling flame in his hand.

He moved across the room, to the candles sitting on the windowsill.

“Dominic,” she said. “What are you doing?”

“I’m only setting the mood.”

“There’s no need,” she said. “Tonight’s been lovely.”

“But I insist.”

“The smoke,” she said, trying again. “You’ll set off an alarm.”

Dominic unlatched the window and pushed it open until it slammed against the side of the building. “There. Better?”

“Come here,” she urged, reaching out an arm again.

Dominic paused by the desk, lighting a few more candles. “Drink your champagne, Camille,” he said. “I bought it special for you.”

Her hand locked around the flute like a vice grip, her eyes trailed after him as he moved around the room lighting candles and discarding used matches.

She tried again. “I don’t need any of this, Dominic. I have you.”

“I know,” Dominic said. He paused in front of a candle, his back to her so she could not see his expression. Carefully Camille took a sip of her champagne, bristling slightly and tightening the muscles in her calves as she heard the hiss of another match. When he turned back to her, his silhouette was hazy, with a myriad of tiny lights casting shadows across his face and body.

His voice was swimming. Camille blinked, then raised her hand to wipe her eyes. She tried to follow the movements of Dominic’s mouth as he said, “I just hope that I have you, too.”

“Of course you do,” Camille tried to say. Her tongue was heavy in her mouth. “You always have me.”

Dominic dimmed the lights and the whole room swam again. Camille’s hand felt heavy; her head lolled and she stared at her fingers, trying to force her hand to make a fist around the stem of the glass but her fingers would not comply. She couldn’t do anything but watch as the glass tumbled out of her slackened hand, unable to ask what he’d done to her, or to stop herself as she pitched forward, the shifting ground slowly coming up to meet her.

When she opened her eyes she was on the bed, her cheek pressed against the mattress. The room still shifted with the candle light, the walls now painted orange, the room tumbling, the floor moving. Her mouth was dry and she couldn’t move without groaning. She only moved her hand an inch or so before she fell back to the bed, her shoulders, arms, and back slack again

“Ah,” Dominic’s voice cut through the room from somewhere outside her immediate field of vision. “I see you’re awake again.”

Next to her Camille heard the sheets rustling, then heard Dominic’s footsteps. He walked into her sight, his shirt now loosened further and unbuttoned down to the middle of his chest. Dominic leaned down so he was at eye level with her, and smiled.

“What did you do to me?” Camille croaked.

“Nothing that you need to worry about, Camille,” he said. “Now – shh, don’t talk. I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself too badly. I was very, very worried about you tonight.”

“I was with you,” Camille whispered.

Dominic brought up a hand and brushed her hair out of her face. “Camille, Camille. You are so beautiful now.”

“Dominic,” she forced the words out, and she tried to say more but he stopped her, raising a finger to her lips.

“You know how much I want to be here with you.” He was kneeling just a few inches away from her, close enough that she could hit him, or spit at him, if only she could move.

“I need to know that I can trust you. I want to trust you. That’s what lovers _do_.” The last word he spat, his face contorted for a moment before softening again. He smothered her hair down, then reached down to his chest, dropping his gaze away from her. “It hurts me, Camille, that you would vanish on me in the middle of my event. How can I count on you to be my lover if I can’t even count on you to stand by my side?”

He stood, moving out of her line of sight. Camille wanted to follow him, or to get up and leave. She forced herself to flex her jaw, opening and closing her mouth before finally trying to speak again.

“How can I trust you when you drug me?”

“I didn’t want to,” he said. “But it was the only way I could think of to show you how _unbalanced_ our relationship has become.” He turned, and she saw now he was holding one of the smaller candles in his hand. “I could do anything to you right now and you couldn’t stop me, Camille. But I won’t, because as your lover you know that you can trust me not to.”

He sat next to Camille; she felt her body tense, her heartrate quickening as Dominic reached his unoccupied hand across her back, to the top of her dress. Dominic tugged at the zipper, pulling the cold metal down the length of her skin and parting the fabric so he could see her bare back.

“Don’t,” Camille whispered. Her eyes were wide, staring at Dominic as he held the candle, the small flame dancing across her vision.

“Shh, shh,” Dominic murmured. “Don’t worry, my dear. I won’t hurt you.”

She couldn’t follow what he did once his hands moved out of her sight, but she felt the moment he set the candle on the small of her back, a small hot weight pressing down against her flesh. She tensed, unable to relax even as Dominic pulled away from her.

“It won’t burn you,” Dominic said. He traced his fingers up the length of her spine, pausing over the heavy scarring between her shoulder blades and laying his palm flat against the skin. “I won’t let you be hurt, Camille. I do, after all, love you very much.”

He reached over and returned with another candle, this one the same size as the first.

“You really hurt me tonight, Camille,” he said as he set this one a few inches above the first. “You made me look bad. Who were you with?”

A montage of memories ran through her head, from the men she smiled at and lured away to the side of the room with her laugh and her sloppy steps, and her arms reaching out as she drew their faces close enough to hers so she could ask her questions, about South America, about Haiti, about oil and geography and did they remember the name of the men Dominic was hiring? And she remembered the women too, the ones she pulled away from their companies, talking and laughing and collecting errant bit of information as she exaggerated her drunkenness and made a few comments that these girls corrected with facts she didn’t have before.

“I was talking about you.”

“Do you think I am stupid?” he snapped.

“No!”

“You should have been with me,” he snapped. “I shouldn’t feel like a parent, keeping an eye on you, hearing about how badly behaved my lover is, how much she’s had to drink all while I do not get to see you for myself!”

Another candle. Another tremor down the length of her back.

“Dominic, please,” Camille started.

“Quiet,” he snapped. “If you don’t trust me, move it yourself. It will be interesting to see if you will try, when the strength returns to your arms.”

He reached out again, this time lifting one of the taller candles from the night stand. Camille shied away from it against the bed.

“There is so much worse I could do to you,” he said. “For instance, what stops me from lighting you on fire? Or your dress?” Again his hand returned to her scars, and when she shook he laughed. It sounded almost friendly. “I won’t, though, because I love you.”

This new candle was placed between her shoulder blades, heavier than the others and more liable to tip.

Camille closed her eyes, trying to call up what she remembered from her training. Breathe. Breathe. Her chest shuddered and every time she drew in a breath the candle on her back shook precariously.

“Camille,” Dominic snapped. “I said I love you.”

Her eyes snapped open. She felt the hand Dominic couldn’t see make a fist.

She wanted to hit him. She was his lover, but she didn’t love him. How easy it would be to tear this candle off her back, to reach out and swing with her closed fist.

She looked up at Dominic again.

“I love you too, Dominic,” she said, a slurred whisper. “I don’t know what more I need to do to prove this.”

“Stand beside me,” he said. “Stop acting like you don’t want to know me. Camille, I want to believe everything you say, but sometimes it’s hard. You make it so hard to trust you.”

He reached over her back, smoothing his fingertips against her skin. Finally, Camille felt the weight between her shoulder blades lifted, the heavy pressure of fear easing off her lungs.

Her relief was short lived, and quickly replaced by a searing pain that dripped onto her skin, familiar and old and liquid and white, and Camille couldn’t believe she had the audacity to feel betrayed by the likes of Dominic Greene. She pushed herself up onto her elbows, arching her back away from where the wax dripped onto her and pushing herself forward. The candles on her lower back tipped onto her skin, spilling more wax onto her back and burning her.

She didn’t get far, collapsing on the ground only a few feet away from Dominic. Her legs weren’t working, weren’t moving at all, and everywhere she looked there were more candles, more fire, and her back ached.

Dominic set the candle in his hand to the side and in a sweeping movement knelt in front of her. He reached a hand out to her and gave a short laugh when she flinched away, then reached around her back to pull her in closer. She ducked and was almost grateful for how the drugs stopped her from retching with revulsion as Dominic rested his chin on her head, pulling her face against his chest.

“There, there, Camille,” he said. “In the future try to be careful. I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”

She hated how she buried her face against his chest, breathing in whatever cologne he wore to distract herself from the smell of smoke and the searing burns she still felt over old wounds.


End file.
